Fannie and Freddie Accounting Disaster Here to Stay

Whatever you think about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there can be little honest disagreement that the government-run mortgage giants are serial accounting offenders.

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Whatever you think about Fannie Mae ( FNMA) and Freddie Mac ( FMCC), there can be little honest disagreement that the government-run mortgage giants are serial accounting offenders.

While the problems date back roughly two years, they hadn't been reported on previously because Fannie buried them in obscure filings, arguing they weren't material to investors.

But a pair of accountants I spoke with don't agree, nor does the accounting website Going Concern, which in citing my story helpfully included links to past issues at Fannie dating from 1998-2004.

"How much more do you need to know that Fannie and Freddie let problems fester?" says Francine McKenna, one of the accountants I interviewed last week. "And who ends up holding the bag? The taxpayer. These two organizations need to be put to sleep. Whatever your opinion is from a policy perspective, they can't get it under control from an accounting perspective."

If these accounting issues were honest mistakes, the lesson appears to be that Fannie and Freddie are too big to manage. If they were the result of deliberate malfeasance, a different lesson may be drawn--perhaps that they are too big to regulate.

Mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have languished under government control since the financial crisis. Now Trump's nominee for Treasury secretary says he wants them privatized - fast.